3 Series spells long distance: from South Africa to Munich with the BMW 318i.

3 Series spells art: BMW Art Car by Roy Lichtenstein.

3 Series estate of the art: Max Reisböck and his creation, the BMW 3 Series Touring.

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THREE CHEERS! 40 YEARS OF THE BMW 3 SERIES

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40 YEARS OF THE BMW 3 SERIES
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THREE CHEERS. 40 YEARS OF THE BMW 3 SERIES.

3 Series noses ahead: the changing face of a character car.

The world has changed radically over the last 40 years:
walls have fallen, borders have disappeared and new technology has
revolutionised our existence in ways we could not have imagined in
our wildest dreams. Personal computers, the internet, mobile
communications – all these have become indispensable not only in
our everyday lives, but in our cars as well.

As a market leader, the 3 Series has shaped the premium segment for
mid-range cars for 40 years. And the success story continues: on 7 May
2015, BMW unveiled the latest generation of this trendsetter to the
eyes of the world at the BMW Museum in Munich. The event coincided
with the opening of a special exhibition celebrating “40 Years of the
BMW 3 Series”.

To mark the event, 3 Series enthusiasts from all over Europe parked
their vehicles around the BMW Museum. One 318i E30 even travelled to
Munich all the way from South Africa, covering the full 15,000
kilometres (over 9,000 miles) under its own steam – despite already
having 400,000 km (around 250,000 miles) on the clock. The drivers’
account of their trip can be found at backmywheels.wordpress.com.

Nobody could have predicted the success of the first BMW 3 Series
back in 1975: as successor to the legendary 2 Series, it had a hard
act to follow.

For BMW, however, the introduction of the 3 Series was a real
watershed, for in addition to the new model designation, the car also
heralded a number of other innovations. One particularly innovative
feature was the driver-oriented cockpit, for which BMW is famous.

From the outset, the 3 Series was the embodiment of the sporty
mid-range sedan – and so it remained.

For the first series, known internally as the E21, the 3 Series was
available only as a two-door sedan, although in the 320/6 and 323i it
featured powerful and silky-smooth six-cylinder engines.

The car’s success proved the developers right from the very
beginning. The 3 Series has been the BMW brand’s bestselling model for
40 years. Just six years after its launch, the one-millionth car came
off the production line.

The first version of the 3 Series was not only a commercial success,
however. In sporting terms, too, the E21 garnered countless awards: as
a race car for the track it enjoyed showing the competition who was
boss. And the 3 Series even set new standards in the art world, when
renowned artist Roy Lichtenstein turned one of these vehicles into a
unique artwork.

Then in 1982 it was the turn of the E30. Succession was no easy task
for the newcomer. After all, by now the E21 was the most successful
BMW of all time.

Whereas the older E21 was available only as a two-door sedan, the new
E30 came in two- and four-door versions, and was even expanded later
to include an elegant convertible and estate variant. The latter,
named the 3 Series Touring, established the class of compact estate
models dubbed “lifestyle estates”. Today it is hard to believe how
this model variant came into existence. A BMW employee, Max Reisböck,
bought an accident-damaged 3 Series with a view to carrying out a
complete rebuild. As a master bodybuilder, he had all the requisite
skills. Once the rear part of the roof was removed, he lengthened the
vehicle’s tail to create an estate. Although he had restored the car
purely for his own use, he showed his creation to his boss, who was so
impressed that this “touring” version went into production virtually
unchanged. An estate variant, which bore the stigma of a rather
lacklustre commercial vehicle, had previously been unthinkable at BMW.
Max Reisböck was present for the opening of the special exhibition at
the BMW Museum on 7 May 2015 and can still look back with genuine
pride on his creation.

But the Touring was not the only former “no-go” that BMW made
reality: a six-cylinder diesel unit in a sports sedan was equally unexpected.

And the E30 also gave rise to something else: the legendary BMW M3.
As a homologation model for the German Touring Car Championship (DTM),
the first BMW M3 – a sports version of the E30 featuring distinctive
flared wings – came to epitomise the family-friendly sports car of the
day. In its first race season in 1987, the BMW M3 won the World
Touring Car Championship, the DTM and the European Touring Car
Championship. Having earned many other championship titles and
countless individual victories, the BMW M3 Group A from the E30 model
series is today the world’s most successful touring car.

The E30 was superseded by the E36 in 1990. This 3 Series was also
penned by designer Claus Luthe. From now on, the two-door sedan no
longer used the same bodylines as the four-door model, but was instead
a coupé with an elongated bonnet and flatter front screen. This was
not the only new shape to join the 3 Series family, however: a Compact
variant was added at entry level. In addition, BMW finally parted
company with the traditional circular headlamps, mounting the new
lights behind sealed glass covers. Innovations were introduced beneath
the bodywork too, with new four-cylinder diesel units offering an
unprecedented combination of efficiency and driving dynamics.

Over the last 40 years, the BMW 3 Series has been both trendsetter
and benchmark in the mid-range segment. This is also reflected in the
sales success of BMW’s mid-range model: over 14 million BMW 3 Series
units have been shipped since its debut in 1975 – today the Sedan and
Touring models account for around 25 per cent of total BMW vehicle
sales. More than any other model, the BMW 3 Series represents the
heart of the BMW brand.

No matter how much our world has changed over the last 40 years, the
3 Series will remain an ever-present star in the BMW firmament.

And because the 3 Series is without doubt an incredibly fine car, it
also has an incredible number of fans spread around the world. The
film, created in collaboration with the international network of BMW
clubs, provides a window into their boundless passion. The
International Council of BMW Clubs tracked down and profiled four very
special fans with their own personal BMW 3 Series stories to tell.